USCIS will start accepting cap-subject H-1B visa petitions on April 1, 2016. How many H-1B visa will be available and how will they be allocated this time? Here is a quick summary:

Annual Cap: 65,000

Advanced Degree Exemption: 20,000for those who have obtained a master's or higher degree from U.S. universities.

Higher Education and Research Exemption: unlimitedfor those who will work at institutions of higher education or related or affiliated nonprofit entities, nonprofit research organizations or governmental research organizations

Guam Exemption: unlimitedfor those who will work in Guam or the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

Chile and Singapore Treaty Set-aside: unused portion of 6,800Every fiscal year, 6,800 H-1B visas are set aside from the annual cap under the terms of the legislation implementing the U.S.-Chile and U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreements. Unused numbers in this pool are made available for H-1B use for the next fiscal year.

Since USCIS is expected to receive more than 200,000 H-1B visa petitions during the first week of April, it will use a lottery system to randomly select the petitions.

USCIS will first sort out multiple or duplicative H-1B petitions filed by one employer for same employee. USCIS will deny those petitions without refunding the filing fees.

USCIS will then sort out U.S. Master's cap petitions from non-U.S. Master's cases and then use a lottery system to randomly select 20,000 winners.

All cases not selected as part of the U.S. Master's lottery will be entered into the bachelor's cap lottery system.

USCIS will reject and return all unselected petitions along with filing fees.

During the fiscal year 2015, U.S. employers submitted 618,804 labor condition applications for H-1B visas, and Department of Labor made decisions on 88,994 permanent labor certifications for green cards*.

To help you pitch the employers who are more likely to sponsor you in 2016, we have updated all employers' contact information and added demographic profiles of their foreign workers. Click to see example profile and contact person list.

Department of Labor(DOL) typically certifies more than 3 times the number of foreign work requests than the number of H1B visas issued by USCIS. So there is no one to one relationship between the number of workers certified by the DOL and the number of H1B work visas issued by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Myvisajobs.com was founded by immigrants on Sep 2006 as an information portal and job board for U.S. employers and foreign workers. Today, it has become the largest and most trusted employment web site for immigrants seeking employment opportunities in the United States. Myvisajobs.com publishes the details of all labor condition applications and labor certifications quarterly, and releases H1B Visa and Employment Green Card statistics annually. U.S. employers can also post jobs and search candidates on myvisajobs.com. The company’s major services include annual and quarterly Reports for H1B Visas and Green Cards, Customized H1B Visa Solutions, Visa Sponsor Profiles, Resume Services and Smart Apply for job applicants.

December hiring is at low levels in many industries. However, we still strongly encourage you take proactive actions now to apply for new jobs and contact visa sponsors directly. Here are the reasons:

USCIS will start accepting cap-subject H-1B Visa petitions on April 1, 2016 for fiscal year 2017. It is only three and half months away.

Applications tend to slow down during the holiday season more than openings do -- tipping the balance in favor of those who do apply!

Hiring managers and CEOs will typically try to reduce their operating profits by incurring search fees towards the end of each year, to avoid paying taxes. They also do not want to lose the allocated funds for new employees.

Job growth is still very strong. In November, U.S. employers added 211,000 new jobs, and the unemployment rate was still only 5%.